


Act Accordingly

by ssrhpurgatory



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: DSSPPM tips, During Canon, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:15:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27497026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssrhpurgatory/pseuds/ssrhpurgatory
Summary: Sometimes a hat is also a memory of when you were a different person.
Relationships: Alexander Hilbert & Original Female Character, Alexander Hilbert & Renèe Minkowski
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Act Accordingly

**Author's Note:**

> Vaguely the result of me looking at [this comic again](https://madstuart.tumblr.com/post/190866508713/decided-to-re-do-this-ridiculous-comic-and-add-the) and wondering how Minkowski would have reacted.

_April 1989_

Dmitri Vologin had put his winter gear into storage, along with that name, shortly after taking this new job at Goddard Futuristics. Now, he was Dr. Karl Kelley, and Karl Kelley, if not exactly _accustomed_ to the hot and humid climes of Cape Canaveral, Florida, certainly had no reason to keep a fur-lined coat and bearskin cap in his closet.

Some small part of his mind was thinking about those items of clothing with longing at the current moment. Oh, perhaps not the coat—his lab coat was doing a reasonable job of keeping his body warm—but that hat would be much appreciated right now, with his lab temperature down as low as it went, a necessary part of the current observation cycle but one that left his bald head leaching heat into the air and his ears frigid.

But only a small part of his mind. The rest was concentrated on taking notes, on preparing slides, on adjusting his microscope, on all the little tasks that it took to successfully complete the process that he was in the middle of.

That same small part of his mind barely registered the sound as the door to his lab opened and the swift click of heels crossed to his side. He was too hard at work, trying to make sense of what his microscope was showing him, to care that someone else was in the room.

“Right hand,” a voice said. He lifted his hand, obeying without his conscious mind understanding the words. The pencil he had been taking notes with was plucked out of his fingers and something tugged carefully over his hand and down around his wrist. Then, the pencil was replaced and he went back to his note-taking with hardly an interruption. “Left hand.” He again followed the voice’s instruction without thinking and lifted his left hand from its grip on one of the microscope’s knobs. “Hat next—“ the top of his head was enveloped in knit fabric that began to make an appreciable difference in moments “—and here’s a scarf, though I don’t know that you need it.” But the back of his neck appreciated it all the same.

The click of his lab manager’s heels was on the retreat before he registered the bright red fingerless gloves that were now warming his hands. He looked around for their source, startled. “What…?”

“You’re welcome, Dr. Kelley!” Rosemary called over her shoulder before slipping back out the door of his lab.

The interruption, slight as it had been, disturbed him for the rest of the day. But when he went to return the items to Rosemary in her office the next morning, he could not bring himself to scold her for it. After all, she had done her best to take care of him in an unobtrusive manner; it was not her fault that he could not keep his mind off of her once she was gone.

As to _why_ he could not keep his mind off her… perhaps that was a subject best set aside and never revisited. He could think of no reason why she had caught his eye other than that she was eye-catching, with bright suits tailored mercilessly to fit her round body, with a face that was always impeccably made up, with hair that added a good three inches to her diminutive height. But despite all of that, she was still just a short, fat, middle-aged Black woman well past her prime and starting to show it. All of the flashiness of her apparel should have made her ridiculous; all the eccentricities of her personality should have made her repugnant, no matter how good a job she did at keeping both him and his lab in working order.

She was kind. That was the real problem. Karl knew that she reported everything he did back to Mr. Carter, that he could not trust her with anything personal, but that did not stop her from being affected by that kindness. She was not a nice woman by any means—niceness and kindness were so often confused—but she was kind, and that kindness mattered more than he expected it to, after the life he had lived.

The sort of kindness that would think to bring him a way to keep warm when he was uncomfortable. The sort of kindness that would drag him out of his lab to the on-campus cafeteria when he had been hunched over his microscope for too long, teasing him gently all the while for forgetting to eat. The sort of kindness who would be utterly brutal when evaluating his most recent set of results, because she knew he needed to be forced to face his failures before he could make progress.

Rosemary answered his knock on her office door with a distracted “Come on in!”

He entered to find her glaring at her computer screen over the top of a pair of appalling lime-green reading glasses that probably clashed with the purple suit she was wearing, though no one would dare tell her so to her face. “Er.”

Damn. He had let himself dwell on the unspeakable, and now could not bring himself to be anything but awkward in her presence.

She turned her attention to him and raised her eyebrows. “Dr. Kelley? Do you need a requisition form, or have you finally finished that overdue report on microbial soap enhancements like I’ve been telling you to for weeks?”

“Neither, thank you.” And he had been hoping that she had forgotten about that report. He held up the items she had shoved on him the day before, scarf and fingerless gloves and hat with pom-pom, all in a bright, intense red. “I thought I would thank you for loaning these to me. And return them.”

“Oh, keep them,” she said, waving him off. “I’ve got a whole drawer full. We get enough turnover in this building that there’s inevitably someone who has forgotten that labs get quite chilly sometimes.”

“Ah.” He was not opposed to doing so, of course, but… “Do you perhaps have a different color? This is…”

A little smile played at the corner of Rosemary’s mouth. “Not quite to your taste? Best of a bad lot, I’m afraid.” She swiveled in her desk chair and pulled open one of the drawers. Peering over her desk and past her shoulder, Karl could see a whole selection of knitwear in virulent greens, yellows, and oranges. Rosemary pulled one of the yellow hats out, waving it at him. “What _would_ you call this color, by the way?”

“Ah…” He was afraid to say.

“Piss, that’s what. This is piss yellow.”

It really was. “I think I’m fine with these,” he said hastily, before she decided to reclaim the accessories he had clutched in his arms.

“Well, good. And remember to use them. ‘Most body heat is lost through your head,’ after all, so you ought to act accordingly,” Rosemary said as she stuffed the hat back in the drawer and shoved it shut, carefully underpinning that old adage with a biting undertone of sarcasm.

“Old wives tale. Medically inaccurate. That is only true in cases where someone does not have the common sense to wear a hat along with the rest of their winter gear.” He paused for a moment, frowning. “It sounded as if you were quoting something else, though.”

“Pryce and Carter’s Deep Space Survival Procedure and Protocol Manual,” she said mechanically, her attention back on her computer screen, clearly having decided that this interaction was over now that he had accepted the garments.

“Pryce and Carter’s _what_?”

She glanced back at him and switched to a tone of voice that made him feel like he was still in grade school and she was a disappointed teacher every time she used it on him. “Deep Space Survival Procedure and Protocol Manual.” When he continued staring blankly, in search of more context, she raised one eyebrow dangerously and skewered him with a distinct _look_ over the top of her reading glasses. “It’s just something they’re kicking around over in Communications, Dr. Kelley. It lacks, and will continue to lack, any and all relevance to your own life, or at least until you get a chance to do a rotation or two on one of Goddard’s outposts. Until then, forget about it.” She turned her attention back to her computer. “It’s all nonsense, anyway,” she added as an afterthought. “A pile of adages and idioms, all mixed up with inapplicable advice, masquerading as wisdom.”

“Does it have anything else to say about wearing hats?”

Rosemary’s eyes flashed back to meet his, crinkling at the corners as she grinned naughtily. “Why, yes! The very next tip, in fact.”

“Which is?”

“Yes, that hat does look stupid. Act accordingly.”

Karl let out an unexpected laugh. “Ah, you malign me.” He pulled the hat on. “I think I look very dashing, no?”

That naughty grin kept trying to escape Rosemary’s control. “It has a pom-pom, darling. I doubt even your glorious cheekbones can make a pom-pom dashing.”

“I have glorious cheekbones?” Karl did not ever think of himself as man with much in the way of personal attractions; the fact that Rosemary had paid enough attention to any anatomical feature of his to have an opinion on it was… _intriguing_. Yes, best to call it intriguing and leave it at that.

“Did I say that?” Rosemary said, turning her attention back to her computer in an exaggerated fashion.

“You did.” He considered for a moment. Well, it could not hurt to test the waters and see how she might respond to a more personal overture, could it? “Rosemary, I—“

“ _You_ and your _dashing_ pom-pom should skedaddle your way back up to your lab, Dr. Kelley. And I… why, _I_ have all of these requisition requests to work my way through.” She gestured expansively at the in tray on her desk and smiled up at him, a smile devoid of all that warmth that had made her naughty grin so compelling to look at. “Back at it.”

Her tone of voice left no option but efficiency. He nodded briskly to her and was on his way.

But some day, when they were both off the clock, he might just find himself trying to find out whether she really _did_ think his cheekbones were glorious.

Some day.

Never mind that some day never came.

_September 2013_

“And how are you doing in here Dr. Hil—oh, hel _-lo_.”

Alexander turned to look at Commander Minkowski, who had just poked her head through the open door of his laboratory and who had a _very_ peculiar expression on her face.

“Commander? Is something wrong?”

“No, looks like everything is, ah, up to regulation here.” But she sounded as if she were trying not to laugh.

“Pryce and Carter 178, yes,” he said straight-faced, raising one eyebrow meaningfully.

“I was thinking more 179. But… yes! Regulations! You’re… following them. To a T.”

He rolled his eyes. “Out with it.”

“I just never took you for a pom-pom guy.”

“Is it that ridiculous?”

“On Eiffel? I’d wonder why it wasn’t weirder. On you?” She shrugged. “What can I say, you seem like the type for an unadorned navy blue watch cap purchased from a military surplus store. Or maybe a bearskin cap. Red with a pom-pom is… unexpectedly cheerful.”

He reached up to fidget with the brim, well-creased into the fold it had been in for the past twenty years or so. He had never expected it to last so long—the gloves and scarf had long since unraveled into uselessness, and the red of it had faded to something that was only moderately cheerful, if that—but it was still here. Unlike the woman who had given it to him. “It… was a gift.”

Commander Minkowski’s gaze softened for a moment, and he wondered what she had seen in his face that had her reacting like that. Whatever it was, she clearly did not intend to comment on it. “Well, carry on with whatever soap product you’re enhancing this week. Hopefully the next batch will be a little bit, ah, easier on the skin. I hate having to threaten Eiffel into taking showers.”

“Of course, Commander. I will do what I can.”

He turned back to his work, and almost let out a sigh of relief when she left his lab. It had been a mistake to mention the hat’s provenance. Alexander had found, over the years, that it was best to offer only impersonal information about himself, enough details to become a real person to his crew mates but not so much that they became tempted to share any deep confidences of their own.

He had thought the origin of the hat one of the former. It was appalling to find it edging on a deep confidence of his own, appalling to find that he might have betrayed something he would rather keep secret to someone who he had no choice but to keep a careful distance from.

Appalling to find Commander Minkowski fixing him with a speculative look from time to time, as if trying to figure him out, trying to find something under the false image he projected of an absent-minded, if congenial, scientist.

Well, let her try.

There was nothing left for her to find.

There had not been for a very long time.


End file.
